By Monika Goforth | Guatemala Programs Director
Last month ATC held a follow-up review of our amaranth winnower with Dominga, the President of Oxlajuj E women's amaranth cooperative. She and her son, an engineering student, gave us great data!
Their feedback will improve our designs on future machines, they pointed out that:
- The electric motor definitely makes a world of difference cleaning amaranth. It cleaned 150 kilograms of amaranth in 6 hours! That would usually take weeks!!
- But... the catch-tray needs to be a tighter fit, so as not to lose product. Some amaranth was missing the catch-tray.
- Also, the machine works better when slowly pouring in smaller amounts of amaranth, otherwise the conveyor belt squishes the seeds. Technique counts.
- A final mesh colander could catch excess husks to leave a perfect finish.
With your help, this year we'll build a second machine and train a local mechanic to build it for replications. We have already had contact from other amaranth farmers interested in this machine after we got printed up in a national newspaper!
And guess what? Last week ATC was listed for 2016's Sustainia 100 Global Solutions for Mayan Power and Light's clean-tech microbusiness training program. Read the article on Page 93!
Thank you, individual donors, for fueling our innovative solutions.
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